#welcome to the glorious return of jimmy posting

[artfulbassoon]

Thinking so hard about Last Life again, so I've updated my Jimmy design a bit because my style has changed DRASTICALLY since the beginning of the year.

I've got loose ideas for Mumbo and Martyn designs, but I'm totally blanking on Grian and Impulse, so I'll see if I can pop those out before the next semester starts.

[lsktinthemachine]

WandaVision rant

I was really into WandaVision, but something really bothers me (and has since Age of Ultron): I really don’t like how Wanda is presented in the MCU narrative. It’s like they can’t commit to her being a real anti-hero (as in, some of her actions are those of a villain, even though she has good intentions or changes her mind). It kind of pisses me off because the actress is amazing, and I’d like to be invested in the character (I love villains/antihero, like her comics-dad Magneto).

All the ‘good guys’ see her as a ‘good guy’ who has to be protected at all costs, and all the ‘bad guys’ are bent on killing her. It lacks nuance to me. From what we see, she’s a really complex interesting character, but the world in which she’s written does not let her showcase that.

Monica’s line really did it for me: ‘They wouldn’t know what you sacrificed for them’... really? She took them hostage physically and mentally, plain and simple torture for weeks. And faces no consequence for it. We’re not shown the FBI going after her (which they should), no one but the actual bad guy of the story (Agatha) admonishes her for unleashing her fantasy world on innocent bystanders. The FBI apparently also has authority on SWORD by the way...

Which goes with: why was Hayward framed as an asshole for wanting to eliminate her at the start of the show? And why was the team (Monica/Jimmy/Darcy) so bent on being nice to Wanda? Many attempts are made to reason her in the course of 9 episodes, and Hayward is proven right (from an outside perspective) at every single one until the last minutes of the last one.

Why was reactivating Vision framed as being so bad? Obviously Hayward wanted a weapon, but as the director of a worldwide security agency (as in, whose aim would also be to defend the planet against aliens) that would absolutely be the right thing to do, especially after Thanos and Iron Man + Captain America’s loss. Also Wanda’s probably getting white Vision back thanks to that.

Like I don’t specially like military types or authority figures in stories, but they’re often framed as bad guys when they do exactly what their job requires them to do. It’s annoying. In real life I would hate the guy but also would be really resentful if he didn’t take difficult decisions in a time of crisis, like eliminating someone who’s threatening people’s lives, whatever pain they went through or glorious actions they might have achieved before.

That said, the concept of the first 7 episodes was amazing, all the actors were great and the flashback episode was interesting, shading light on Wanda’s background (although a bit more than a single line on how she got into the Hydra program would have been welcomed). The team was super fun, I hope Darcy and Jimmy come back as well. The kids were engaging, and I hope the characters come back at the same age (unlike what they did with Monica and Cassie, although the kids playing them were great). And Agatha was awesome, menacing and likeable (as a villain)

Overall I’m really excited by the perspective offered by the 2 post credit scenes, with Monica in Secret Invasion (or Captain Marvel 2? Anyways, Monica) and the return of Wanda’s kids, as well as badass Wanda, probably in a Doctor Strange movie.

ps: also I hope for some young Maria flashbacks because I liked her as well.

pps: feel free to discuss, or juste plain agree ;)

[temilyrights]

the case of us (chapter nine)

Jack Sloane x Reader

Word Count: 3690

A/N: *posts despite not liking my own writing* It’s been three weeks, sorry! My inspiration for this story has dulled which sucks as there’s only a couple of chapters left. I hope you enjoy, finally some angst back! Anyway, as always, feedback is welcome and very much appreciated :)

Read on AO3

Chapter Eight  Chapter Ten

It was a good morning. You’d actually had a full night’s sleep and were feeling refreshed after finally getting a break from two straight weeks of heavy cases. The traffic had been amazing, which was unheard of, meaning you’d also had enough time to stop off at your favourite coffee shop and still arrived to work 15 minutes earlier than normal. You were beaming. Despite the heavy cases, there had been an energy building between you and Jack the last couple of weeks. The soft smiles and touches growing more often. Ellie had noticed too. She kept sending you smirks from across the bullpen any time Jack appeared, and you knew she was holding back from asking questions. 

Your mind constantly played over the morning in the diner after she’d returned from San Diego, both of you lingering too long in a hug and the way her fingers had stroked the inside of your wrist at one point when you’d been eating. A smile brightens up your face as you think about it. You’d decided last night that you were finally going to do it. You were going to ask Jacqueline Sloane out on a date.

As you got off the elevator, wiping the remains of a pastry from your mouth and taking a sip of your coffee, you were surprised to see Ellie, Nick, and Jimmy all surrounding Tim and his desk talking in hushed whispers. 

Jimmy was the first to notice you, alerting the others to your presence with a too-loud “Y/N!” that had them all whipping around to face you. Your step momentarily falters in surprise before you continue on the route to your desk. 

“Fancy seeing you here.” Jimmy laughed and you could see the others physically cringe. Nick looked like he wanted to slap him over the head.

“In the bullpen of the place I work. How shocking...” sarcasm drips from your tongue as Jimmy releases a nervous laugh.

“What Jimmy means is you’re earlier than usual, that’s all.” Ellie jumps in.

“Ok well, whatever this is” you wave your hand in their direction. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be involved so can we-”

“Hey, did you guys hear about Jack’s new girlfriend?” The others all groan, Nick releasing a few swear words as Jimmy says a nervous ‘oh boy’. Your head snaps around to stare at Kasie who’s just entered the bullpen. She freezes as she takes in everyone’s reactions, her gaze finally settling on you as she breathes a quiet ‘oh’. 

“Jack’s got a girlfriend?” Your voice is strangled as your heart drops into your stomach. She couldn’t, could she? You would have noticed; she would have said something. Had you been imagining everything for the last couple of weeks? Your mind swarms as your gaze turns to the team. 

Kasie, now frozen in fear, looks to the rest of the team for help as they all try to avoid both yours and her gaze. Finally, Ellie sighs meeting your eyes. “There’s a rumour going around...Agent Gomez saw Jack getting coffee with a woman yesterday after work, and they seemed pretty cosy. Apparently, there was even a kiss.”

“Right.” You lower yourself into your chair. Right ok. You take a deep breath trying to calm yourself as your hands skim over your desk and you attempt to keep yourself together, everyone watching you closely. 

“It’s just a rumour though I mean-”

“Whatcha guys talking about?” Jack’s voice chimes into the bullpen as she joins the group by Tim’s desk, flashing that megawatt smile of hers. For fuck sake. This is what you get for having a good morning. 

“Oh, just discussing the case from yesterday.” Tim jumps in before anyone can say anything. You’re still focused on your desk, unable to lift your head and see her but if you did you know you’d see her smile dim slightly, aware of the tension in the room and the obvious lie. 

Jimmy and Kasie quickly make themselves sparse, rattling off an excuse about needing to start work. You feign interest in your computer, listening but not joining the conversation between the team and Jack. She starts laughing and you automatically lift your head, captivated by the pure joy in her voice and face. You grimace and you’re pretty sure your heart breaks at that exact moment. 

Jack must notice your unusual expression as she makes her way over to your desk, perching herself on the edge. Your heart starts hammering. “Hey, you okay?” 

You offer her a small smile “Yeah. Just a bad morning I guess.” It’s a flimsy excuse but it may have worked if Jack’s eyes hadn’t found the coffee cup sitting beside you. She looks back at you, confusion clear because she knew that you only put in the effort to go all the way to Amour’s Coffee House on a good morning.

“Sure ok. Did you want to get lunch together today?” Jack bites her lip, subtitling playing with her hands and you’re surprised to see the nerves she’s usually so good at hiding. 

Did you want to get lunch? The opportunity to spend a whole 45 minutes (bar an interruption) with just Jack, you’d usually jump at the chance but...was she going to tell you about her new girlfriend? You don’t think you’re ready to hear the news from her yet, you need time to process, to be able to hide your obvious disappointment because she’d expect you to be happy for her. You should be happy for her. How did you get it all so wrong?

“I can’t today. Maybe tomorrow?” You offer and the way Jack’s face drops in disappointment is almost enough to make you reconsider. 

“Yeah no problem, anyway I should get back to work.” Jack stands, hands signalling in the direction of her office, her eyes still watching you closely, clearly confused by this whole conversation. You try to smile but it doesn’t meet your eyes. Jack just nods before turning and walking away. 

After she’s turned the corner you breathe a sigh of relief. Looking up, you notice that everyone’s finally sitting at their desks, they all offer you sad and understanding smiles. Nick goes to say something, but you cut him off before he can. 

“Nope. Whatever you’re about to say, don't.” 

“Y/N-”

“Nope. I’m not talking about this with any of you. It is what it is, let's all just move on.” 

----

You’d known you hadn’t exactly been subtle with your feelings towards Jack. You just didn’t know, apparently, the whole of NCIS knew as well if the pitiful looks you’d been getting the whole day were anything to go by. If there was one thing about NCIS you hated was how quickly gossip travelled.

“Poor Agent Y/N. She must be devastated.” You tense, stopping yourself from turning the corner into the break room as you hear your name. 

“And to find out from rumours as well? You should have seen her face when they told her.” You didn’t recognise the voices of either of the agents, but their grievous tones were enough to make your stomach crawl. 

“Poor girl. Such a pity really. I wonder what Agent Sloane thinks about it all. Do you think she knows?”

Your eyes are squeezed shut as you listen, so you don’t notice when Gibbs enters the break room from the other side. It’s not until he clears his throat, halting the women's conversation that your eyes snap open. He’s directing his piercing blue glare at them, and he doesn’t need to say anything, as the 2 agents quickly hurry out of the room. They duck their head in shame when they notice you but don’t apologise just hurry up their exit.

“T-Thank you.” You manage a small smile, stepping into the room and hoping Gibbs doesn’t notice the way your voice falters.

“Don’t mention it.” Gibbs surprises you by pulling you into a one-armed hug that you immediately relax into. “Coffee?” Gibbs asks as you pull away, sniffing and quickly wiping away the tear that had managed to escape. 

“Yeah, sure.”

Gibbs goes to get the drinks while you return to your desk and focus back on the report you’d been working on before you’d gone in search of food. Which reminds you that you still hadn’t eaten. Your stomach continues to make noises of protest and you swear you could smell grilled cheese which is obviously just your imagination, but it’s rude because it’s totally what you would have ordered if you’d gone to lunch with Jack.

The smell was only getting stronger and you look up to see if one of the others was eating only to be surprised to see Jack standing by Ellie’s desk talking to the younger woman. Your eyes zero in on the brown paper bag in Jack’s hand, there was a grease mark in one corner and your mouth waters.

Your eyes break away when you hear Jack’s laughter and heat prickles at your cheeks when you realise she’s laughing at you. “See something you like?” Her wicked smirk only makes your blush brighter as she saunters over to your desk and perches in her spot. You don’t know how to respond so instead release an awkward laugh that makes one of Jack’s brows shoot up and really it should be illegal to look this good. “I know you said you couldn’t do lunch, so I thought I’d get you something cause I know you haven’t eaten yet.” Jack’s smile is soft and caring as she hands you the sandwich.

“Thank you.” You grin, opening up the bag and pulling out the grilled cheese. You take a bite and moan as you savour the glorious taste of the strong cheese. “Oh, this is good.” You say after swallowing your mouthful. When you look at Jack you notice she’s got a light blush covering her cheeks. You frown but before you can question her Gibbs strolls over and hands you the coffee he’d gone to get you and then the realisation of why he’d gone to get you the coffee comes back as well. 

“Thanks, Gibbs.” The wide smile you had on your face disappears, replaced by a much smaller one as you accept the drink

“Oh, I see how it is, get me to get you food, Gibbs to get your coffee. Should we get Nick to do your paperwork next?” Jack laughs, rolling her eyes playfully at you. Her smile dulls, confusion clouding her face when she notices you’re no longer smiling. 

“Even if I was willing to do her paperwork, she’d double-check everything I’d written afterwards anyway.” Nick’s words erupt laughter from the rest of the team, and you feel your blush rising again.

“Just because I have standards.” You snark, sticking your tongue out at Nick who makes a noise of mock outrage. You can feel Jack watching you closely still but you avoid her eyes, instead, burying your face in the grilled cheese. You pay for that though when you take a too-large bite and it burns your tongue. 

“Ow! shit!” You splutter as you spit the mouthful into the trash bin behind you when you turn back around Jack’s already holding out your water bottle which you quickly accept and down half of it. She was always there for you, helping whenever you needed it. God, you don’t know how you’re going to be able to get through this without letting her know. 

“And that’s why we blow our food,” Jack says condescendingly but her eyes dance with humour. 

“Well, I didn’t do it on purpose, did I?” You don’t know where the words came from. Jack rears back in surprise, her mouth hanging open in shock at your sharp tone. You can feel your face heating up with embarrassment and you’re beginning to feel overwhelmed by how close Jack is as your mind screams ‘Girlfriend! Girlfriend! Girlfriend!’. The others are shooting you surprised looks and you gulp, shaking your head. “Sorry, I uh,” The concern in Jack’s face is too much and you feel tears building behind your eyes. “I’ve just gotta…” You stand up from your desk, Jack tries to reach out for you but you move too fast as you head away from the bullpen. 

“Y/N!” Jack calls after you, shock still evident in her voice, but you don’t turn around, just lower your head and keep walking.

You end up on the roof of all places. The soft breeze ruffles your hair and you begin to relax as you rest against the brick wall. Holding your head in your hands, shame rushes through you. You desperately needed to get control of your emotions before you fucked everything up. Frustrated tears begin to fall down your cheeks and you wipe them away as you release a loud groan. 

You needed to get a hold of yourself. Get through the day, go home and then you could cry. Let your emotions take control for a few hours and then peace yourself back together and be the friend Jack thought you were. Be supportive of her and her new girlfriend and not let your crushing disappointment show. Ever. 

The door opens from next to you and you quickly push yourself off the wall ready to make your exit when you notice it’s Ellie. You sigh and lean back against the wall as she comes and leans beside you. 

“Is she pissed?” You ask as you anxiously chew your lip, looking off into the distance instead of at the woman next to you. 

“No. She’s confused,” Ellie dips her head slightly. “And maybe also a little hurt.” 

“Oh.” You sigh. “I’ll apologise. I just needed to get out of there.” You don’t know how you’re going to apologise. Hey, sorry I snapped at you. I just found out you have a girlfriend and I’m terribly jealous and upset because I thought there was something between us? You couldn’t lie to her either. She’d see through it instantly. 

“She wanted to follow. Gibbs stopped her and then Izzy phoned again.” 

Your heart drops into your stomach, a lump forming in your throat. “Izzy?”

“Yeah. She’s been phoning all day.” 

Understanding rushes through you. “She’s Jack’s girlfriend.” It made sense. You’d mistaken Jack’s happiness of having a new girlfriend, of reconnecting with Izzy, as excitement for you. You’d been so stupid. Of course, it was Izzy. It was always Izzy. 

“What? No way. Jack’s been avoiding her calls.” 

You shake your head, trying to keep the tears that were threatening to fall again at bay. “They met up again when she was in San Diego. They went out for drinks.” 

“That doesn’t mean they’re now dating.” 

“God Ellie, I’ve been such a fool. I was going to ask her out today. I thought…” You trail off, wiping away tears as they trickle down your cheeks. “I really thought she might…” Your eyes blur with tears and Ellie pulls you into a hug as you cry into her shoulder. Ellie squeezes tighter as your cries grow louder. 

“Hey, It’s going to be okay. Maybe you should talk-”

“No.” You shake your head, pulling away from her arms and wiping the tears from your cheeks. “She can’t ever know.”

“Y/N-”

“No.” The venom in your tone surprises her. “I’ll be fine. Her and Izzy have a history if there’s a chance Jack can be happy; I'm not going to jeopardize that.”

“And what about your happiness?”

You shrug. “I’ve done this before. I can do it again. I’ve never been great at relationships anyway, maybe this is all for the best.”

“For the record, I think you’re making a mistake.”

“I’m making the choice I can live with. I can’t risk losing her Ellie.”

Ellie wants to say more. She was convinced this was all a big misunderstanding because she’d seen the way you two looked at each other. There was just no way Jack didn’t feel the same things you did, and Ellie would bet her job on it. She doesn’t say anything though, knows there’s no use trying to fight you on this. She sighs. “Okay.”

“Okay.” You breathe a sigh of relief. “Let’s get back to work.”

Ellie nods. You send her off to the bullpen while you head to the bathroom, fixing what remains of your makeup and making sure you didn’t look like you’d been crying. You head to the good coffee shop down the street and grab some for the whole team, an apology for your outburst that they all happily accept. 

Taking a deep breath and squaring your shoulders, you ascend the stairs to Jack’s office. Every part of you was screaming that you should run in the opposite direction, avoid her for as long as possible until you could get over your feelings for her, but you knew she didn’t deserve that and you don’t think you’d even have the willpower to do it. 

Jack’s sitting at her desk, biting the hangnail on her thumb. She’s looking at a folder, but you can tell she’s not taking anything in. You knock lightly on the door, swallowing roughly when Jack looks to you, her eyes a sea of emotions. She doesn’t speak. 

Stepping further into her office, you place the coffee cup on her desk in front of her. “I’m sorry... about my outburst.” You can barely hold her eyes. Jack takes the coffee, taking a sip as she waits for you to continue. “I don’t know what came over me. It was totally unprofessional-” 

 “Unprofessional?” Jack’s brows shoot up, shock and hurt seeping into her tone. “I don’t give a crap about professionalism. I care about you.” Your eyes squeeze shut as your stomach flutters. “I care about what made you so upset.” Jack gets up from her chair, shutting her office door before coming to stand beside you. She grabs your hand turning you so you face her. Pulling together all the confidence you can muster you meet her eyes, removing your hand from hers. You miss Jack’s hurt look as you wrap your arms around your waist and take a breath. 

“I got some bad news this morning.” Jack’s eyes widen and you can see the panic rushing across her face as worse and worse scenarios run through her head. “I’m fine.” You rush to explain. “I just didn’t expect it and it shook me a bit. I took it out on you and I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.” It’s the closest to the truth you could think of without giving anything away. 

Jack knows something isn’t quite right. You were never cryptic with her. “Maybe I can help? What happened?” 

“It doesn’t matter. You can’t help, not this time.” 

Her brows furrow in confusion. “Did you want to talk about it?” 

“It’s fine, really. I just need to forget about it and move on.” And be the friend you expect me to be.

Jack steps forward, reaching for your hand again. You squeeze your eyes shut as they fall to focus on the floor instead of Jack whose concern was only growing. “Hey,” Her fingers touch your chin, forcing your face up again to meet her eyes. “Y/N. Come on, talk to me.” 

You move your face from her reach. You definitely should have waited till tomorrow to have this talk when the wounds were at least a little less fresh and when you had a proper story prepared. “I should be getting back to work.” Jack’s hand tightens on yours, stopping you from pulling out of her grasp. You sigh. “Look, I am sorry for snapping at you. I really am but I’m fine. There’s nothing to talk about.” 

Jack looks at you closely, brows furrowing as she analyses you. “Why have you hardly looked me in the eye since you got in here?” 

You tense. You desperately needed to get out of this room. “I…” You clear your throat as you try to think of something to say. Jack’s mobile starts ringing from where it sits on her desk and you have to stop yourself from breathing a sigh of relief. However, when she doesn’t make any effort to move, still completely focused on you, you speak up. “You should get that. It could be important.” Could be Izzy.

“They’ll phone back if it is.” You could see Jack’s impatience growing as she crosses her arms across her chest. You force yourself to meet her gaze, guilt churning in your stomach when you see the hurt in her eyes. 

The phone stops ringing. The room is completely silent as you stare at each other. You don’t know what to say, how to get through this without letting her know about the pain you were feeling, about how disappointed and embarrassed you were because you’d been convinced she felt the same way. Tears begin building behind your eyes and you sigh. “Jack-”

The phone starts ringing again and Jack releases a frustrated sigh as she looks between you and her phone. “Don’t move.” She says and makes her way over to pick up her phone.

You needed to get the hell out of this room. You dig your phone out of your pocket and then turn to Jack. “We got a lead. I’ve got to go.” You speak quietly, as to not to disturb her call, signalling to the door. 

Jack shakes her head, rolling her eyes. Pissed at your obvious lie. “Sorry one second.” She removes the phone from her ear, holding it against her chest. “This isn’t over.” 

You don’t respond, just duck your head, and make your way out of her office. Everything was going to be fine. Jack would drop the subject soon, especially if you could act normal. Which you could. Easily. Tomorrow you’d bring coffee and pretend everything was fine and try to distance yourself a little. Not enough for Jack to notice but enough that you didn’t feel like you were drowning. 

This was going to be difficult, but it was the right thing to do.

[theastrophilearchitect]

WandaVision series review part 2.

Last week, I posted part 1 of my WandaVision series review, containing my initial thoughts and breakdown of episodes 1-3 (part 1 can be found here). This post, part 2, will contain my breakdown of episodes 4-6, and part 3, to come next week, will contain episodes 7-9 and my final thoughts. 

So, let’s go.

Episode Four: ‘We Interrupt This Program’ This is the episode where everything comes together; where things start to make sense. This episode debuted on January 29th, finally giving us some answers after the first and second episodes were released on the 15th. It has a runtime of 34 minutes, which is fairly on par with the episodes up to here, though this episode doesn’t follow the sitcom format, but feels more like your classic MCU content.

The episode opens with a previously on WandaVision recap, which seems to very much focus on Geraldine, the meaning of which soon becomes clear. And we enter a black screen which slowly fades into the form of Geraldine, with voices from the movie Captain Marvel--the voices of Carol Danvers, Maria Rambeau and Maria’s daughter, Monica, which just confirms fan speculation that Geraldine is, in fact, a grown-up Monica Rambeau, and we must currently be seeing her after the Blip--after Bruce Banner’s snap in Avengers: Endgame returned all those Thanos killed at the end of Avengers: Infinity War.

Monica sits in a hospital room, but the bed beside her is empty, then she leaves the room to panic as people coalesce throughout the hospital. She asks about a patient in room 104, then one of the doctors recognises her, and tells her her mother--Maria Rambeau--who presumably was who she was in the hospital for, is dead, and about the Blip, because it seems to Monica it’s only been a few minutes. And we have the Marvel logo, after an introduction instead of right at the beginning as in the sitcom episodes.

Cut to the headquarters of SWORD, standing for Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Division, which is quite clearly just talking about Vision. Honestly, though, Marvel’s obsession with making their acronyms real words--I’m talking to you, SHIELD and HYDRA--is mildly irritating because of how unrealistic it is. Just a me-gripe.

Monica fails to access the building, her badge apparently outdated, and we’re introduced to Tyler Hayward, acting director of SWORD in Monica’s absence. Hayward brings her into the building and declares Monica grounded, able to only carry out terrestrial missions, on her mother’s order for if the personnel who disappeared in the Blip were to return. He then assigns her to an ‘FBI thing’. Cue the wonderful Jimmy Woo.

Monica is welcomed near the sign for Westview by Jimmy Woo, the FBI agent who dealt with Scott Lang’s house arrest in Ant-Man and the Wasp. Jimmy tells Monica a witness he had in Westview has gone off the radar; that everyone seems to have forgotten the man’s existence. And they approach two policemen stood by the sign, who claim Westview doesn’t exist. Ah, Wanda’s lovely magic. Jimmy also says he can’t contact anyone on the inside.

‘This isn’t a missing person’s case, Captain Rambeau, it’s a missing town. Population 3,892.’

And Jimmy claims the town itself won’t let him in to investigate, but though the town seems empty, it is visible, and there doesn’t appear to be any physical barrier. Monica sends in a helicopter-style drone, and the camera feed glitches like a television screen as it nears the town, then the drone disappears--the toy helicopter Wanda found in episode 2. Monica approaches the town, and a television-barrier becomes apparent. Monica touches it, and is pulled inside, hence becoming Geraldine within Westview in episodes 2 and 3.

Cut to a day later, the glorious Darcy Lewis from the first two Thor movies, Jane Foster’s (Thor’s love interest’s) intern, now graduated and with a PhD in astrophysics, sits in a van with several other scientists of different fields. Outside Westview, SWORD has set up a kind of military base. Darcy takes some readings and gets ‘a colossal amount of CMBR’ (Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, which is one of the things used to prove the Big Bang Theory), and notices ‘longer wavelengths superimposed over the noise’, and has the idea to set up and link a vintage television to it.

Cut to night, we watch a man in some kind of protective suit crawl through sewers into Westview, the border of which transforms him into the beekeeper from the end of episode 2 which prompted Wanda to rewind and skip to the 1970s.

Darcy’s TV picks up the signal, and plays the previous episodes of WandaVision in their sitcom format, pointing out Vision is meant to be very, very, very dead. We see that the hands the camera zoomed out to reveal watching the show at the end of episode 1 belong to Darcy.

At this point, SWORD starts putting together a wall and whiteboard of their information, and it’s really fun to see them asking all the same questions we as an audience are. Why hexagonal shape? I take it this means the border is hexagonal, not that we’d know that as an audience. Why sitcoms? I know the answer, but only because I watched episode 8 already. Same time and space? and, of course, Is Vision alive?

It’s really fun knowing the answers.

Jimmy and Darcy watch Monica as Geraldine, and question whether she’s playing along or if she’s oblivious. With some science-y Darcy stuff, we also see that the voice in the radio in episode 2 was Jimmy, but we see the episode glitched itself out of that situation, like what SWORD is calling the ‘Westview anomaly’ is righting itself when they interfere.

As they watch Wanda give birth, they expect the anomaly to break, as all the other people are real people brainwashed, but then the babies are born, indicating Wanda has some kind of creational power (foreshadowing). Geraldine mentions Ultron, and as Wanda tells her to leave, the episode again glitches to the credits, not quite as we saw in the actual episode.

It then cuts back to that scene in episode 3, but not through the old TV as Jimmy and Darcy are watching. I didn’t notice whether or not it did this in episode 3, but the aspect ratio has increased, more to that typical of a modern show, in contrast to the smaller ones of the early sitcoms. And we watch Wanda threaten Geraldine with her magic, glowing red as it should--the event episode 3 emitted, instead giving us Vision’s perspective. Wanda tells Geraldine to leave, and blasts her through the walls of the house, and straight out of Westview, hence the end clip of episode 3. Wanda repairs the wall just before Vision returns home.

Something curious though--we know when SWORD sends things, including people, into it, they transform to fit the style, like the drone becoming a helicopter, the man becoming a beekeeper and Monica’s style changing to fit the decade, but when Monica comes out of Westview, she still looks like she did in the 70s episode.

Cut back to Wanda inside Westview, and she sees Vision walking, but apparently dead; skin-tissue-stuff pale, eyes blank and a hole in his head where Thanos took the mind stone, but he acts normal. Then Wanda sees him again looking normal. Vision tells her they don’t have to stay here if they don’t want to, and Wanda replies that they can’t; that this is their home--’Oh, don’t worry darling. I have everything under control.’ Which affirms Geraldine’s claim at the end of episode 3, that it’s all Wanda. (I’m going to refer to her as Geraldine when talking about episodes 1-3 and Monica when talking about 4-9, even though it’s the same character.)

Wanda and Vision sit down to watch TV and the credits begin, though Vision seems a little apprehensive.

And we finally have some answers about what the hell has been happening in Westview, and the vaguest idea how it fits into the MCU timeline as a whole.

Episode Five: ‘On a Very Special Episode...’ This episode was released on February 5th, with a runtime of 41 minutes, longer than any of its predecessors but still not exceptionally long. This is likely so it can follow the 1980s sitcom format with the inclusion of the SWORD parts. Note at this point, when the decade shifts, it occurs as something goes wrong: we shift to the 1960s when Mr and Mrs Hart question Wanda and Vision about how they came to Westview; we shift to the 1970s when they see the beekeeper, and we shift to the 1980s as Wanda forces Monica out of Westview.

So, we have the recap; nothing particularly noteworthy about it or its focus.

Shit, I just realised Tony’s snap at the end of Avengers: Endgame is now part of the Marvel logo sequence. Ouch.

Music plays, and we open to Tommy crying in a 1980s-style house. This episode is mostly formatted off Full House, in which Elizabeth Olsen’s elder sisters, identical twins Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, played the youngest daughter, Michelle Tanner. Unrelated to the plot, but a fun aspect.

Billy and Tommy won’t stop crying, so Wanda tries to force them to sleep with her powers, but it doesn’t work, and we still don’t see the red sparks, but, again, that’s an 80s-style special effects thing. Also, aspect ratio in this episode: a little larger than in episodes 1-3, but not quite episode 4′s. Funny thing here is that episodes 1-3 were shot and edited in such a way the episodes registered on Disney+ as having a larger ratio, giving a black border around the frame on the screen, but it doesn’t have that in this episode. Just a technical thing I’m not sure of the cause of, though in retrospect may simply be to convey the size of TV screens in the eras.

Also, can we take a moment to appreciate Wanda’s curly hair and floral waistcoat in this episode?

Agnes shows up to help them with the babies, to which Vision is apprehensive, and after a moment, she says to Wanda: ‘Do you want me to take that again?’ as though they’re following a script. This continues, Agnes asks if they should take it from the top, which confuses Vision,  but Wanda just laughs it off. This is interesting, because the only other person we’ve yet seen break character is Geraldine, who entered the anomaly after its initial formation. Then Agnes shifts back into character, and the laugh track picks up again.

Vision questions Agnes’s comments aside with Wanda, but Wanda brushes it off, and acts as though nothing happened, and his suspicion only grows.

Then suddenly the twins are about... five? I’d say five. I don’t know. As Wanda and Vision realise this, Agnes says, ‘Kids. You can’t control ‘em. No matter how hard you try.’ There’s a running theme of children in this show--obviously the children themselves, ‘for the children’ in episode 2, and Mrs Hart’s questioning of when they were going to have children in episode 1. This semantic field fed theories that Wanda was literally doing this ‘for the children’, and this comment from Agnes could suggest the children will be the downfall of the anomaly--Wanda brainwashes the adults, but not the children.

The introduction to this episode is really cute. It has a mellow pop song playing over the top, and the 80s thing of using old photos of the characters; they’ve used actual photos of Elizabeth Olsen and the actors playing the twins, and mildly horrifying photoshopped versions of Paul Bettany as a child, but made into Vision. These photos of Vision were leaked before this episode came out, and it’s just hilarious to me because Vision was born an adult. And, assuming WandaVision takes place in 2024, after Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, Vision is literally nine years old as it takes place.

There generally isn’t much to pick apart in the theme songs themselves, but the general idea of this one is ‘we’re making it up as we go along,’ which could be an interesting insight into Wanda’s state of mind--we’ve somewhat villainised her up to this point, creating the anomaly and controlling people, but the stance should be taken that she just doesn’t know what she’s doing, and is trying her best, selfish as her goals may be.

Cut to Hayward questioning Monica about her memories, and she describes a hopeless feeling--grief--controlling her--Wanda’s grief at the loss of Vision in the fight against Thanos. They take some kind of scan of Monica’s body and draw blood, but have to redo them because the results came out blank--foreshadowing.

Hayward describes Wanda as ‘the principal victimiser’ instead of one of the victims of whatever was happening in Westview, jumping straight to villainous conclusions.

A point here: in a recap of the ‘subjects’, Jimmy Woo states Wanda was born in 1989, which is actually a change to canon, because in the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron, set in 2015, she was 16, born in 1999. Questionable. Still not sure why they did this, but this makes her 29 in WandaVision, excluding the years of the Blip, where she would otherwise be only 19.

Hayward asks Jimmy if Wanda has an alias--in the comics, Wanda Maximoff is Scarlet Witch, but this alias has not yet been stated in the MCU--foreshadowing. Hayward focuses on her failures, such as working against the Avengers upon her introduction and the destruction she caused in Nigeria at the beginning of Captain America: Civil War. He then calls Wanda a terrorist based on how Monica described her experience in Westview.

Hayward then reveals to us footage of Wanda entering the SWORD headquarters where Vision’s body was kept, and shattering glass to access it, broken into pieces, as though to steal it, which Jimmy doesn’t believe because it’s a violation of the Sokovia Accords, and Darcy wonders what will happen when Vision learns the truth.

Wanda comes into the kitchen to find Tommy and Billy with a dog they found and want to keep. Wanda is apprehensive about letting them keep him, Agnes shows up with a dog house, and Wanda decides to create a dog collar, right in front of Agnes. Vision calls her out on this, and she says she’s ‘tired of hiding’. They name the dog Sparky, then Wanda sides with Vision that the twins aren’t old enough to care for him until they’re ten years old, to which they just age themselves up again. Agnes jokes that the dog should stay the same size, but still doesn’t question the magic.

A note here: Wanda skips decades when things don’t go her way, and the twins skip ages--Wanda is in control of the things around her, but not herself, as they are in control of themselves.

Meanwhile, Monica tries to figure out how she could re-enter Westview, and Darcy starts to call the anomaly the Hex because of its hexagonal shape. And they discuss that Wanda must be wielding ‘an insane amount of power’ to maintain the Hex and the twins, beyond anything she’s ever displayed before. Monica mentions she could’ve taken down Thanos on her own if he hadn’t used the infinity stones, and Jimmy mentions he thinks Captain Marvel came close, to which Monica stiffens, and dismisses the conversation about her--something has clearly happened between Monica and Carol since the events of Captain Marvel.

They go a lab to run an analysis on the 70s clothes Monica wore when she came out of the Hex, and discover they’re bulletproof, like the vest she wore when she entered, and they establish Wanda isn’t creating anything, but is rewriting reality.

Vision goes to work, where he helps his co-worker Norm with his computer, and they get an email from SWORD about Westview, mentioning Darcy and radiation. Everyone in the office reads it out with Norm, but they laugh at it, while Vision is suspicious. He turns off the computer with his powers, then does the same zap-thing to Norm, who suddenly comes back to his regular consciousness, outside of Wanda’s control, and begs for help. He tells Vision he has to stop ‘her’, that ‘she’s in [his] head’. Vision zaps him again, and he goes back into sitcom-brain.

Wanda tells the twins Vision went to work, which they question because it’s Saturday. Wanda tells them he just needed a distraction because they weren’t ‘on the same page’. She talks about family, and tells them that her on brother is far away.

Sparky the dog barks at something outside, and we cut to a drone’s view. Monica has sent in an 80s drone, something the Hex wouldn’t need to rewrite, and we see that’s what Sparky barked at. Monica tries to speak to Wanda, and through the drone’s view, but not the broadcast’s, her eyes turn red, and Hayward orders an operator to ‘take the shot’, though Monica didn’t know it was armed. They take the shot and the drone’s camera cuts out. Alarms blare, and a worker claims ‘there’s a breach.’

We go outside to the border, and Wanda exits the Hex, wearing what she wore in the climax of the Infinity Saga, dragging the drone behind her. This is confusing to watch back, because I know in retrospect she wore civilian clothes when the Hex was created, and was left in them when it was destroyed. Shooters aim their guns at her, and she throws the drone to Hayward’s feet. As she talks, what she had elft of her accent in Avengers: Infinity War has returned. She tells them to ‘stay out of [her] home,’ that ‘if [they] don’t bother [her], [she], won’t bother [them].’ Monica talks to her, and she prepares her magic. Monica asks what she wants, and she replies ‘[she has] what [she wants]. And no-one will ever take it from [her] again.’

And ‘for the children’ clicks--Wanda clearly created the Hex to have a life and a family with Vision. Wanda uses her magic to turn the guns onto Hayward, but they don’t shoot as she returns to the Hex.

This scene is important, because it shows us for certain that Wanda is aware of what she is doing, and shows for certain that she is in control, where before we had substantial evidence, but nothing this undeniable.

And cue this episode’s advert, for Lagos Brand paper towels--’For when you make a mess you didn’t mean to.’ This is a reference to an event at the beginning of Captain America: Civil War, in which Wanda accidentally killed twenty-six civilians in Lagos, Nigeria.

We cut back to the Hex, where Sparky has disappeared. They cross paths with a mailman, who says ‘Your Mom won’t let him get far,’ another subconscious reference of one of Wanda’s cast to her control. They find the dog dead in Agnes’s yard, who says he ate her azaleas, which poisoned him. The twins are upset, but Wanda stops them aging up, and gives them a lecture about grief. One of the twins tells her she can ‘fix the dead,’ which Agnes does question. This is a reference to her apparent resurrection of Vision, but Wanda tells them death is inevitable and forever; blatant hypocrisy. 

Later, Vision asks Wanda how the boys are, and Wanda says ‘life moves pretty fast out in the suburbs’, a reference to the show’s time-jumping. Vision tells Wanda of his conversation with Norm, and tells her he was in pain. Vision says ‘You can’t control me the way you do them,’ to which Wanda replies, ‘Can’t I?’ and the credits roll, but sitcom-style credits, not the WandaVision credits.

Wanda tries to leave, and Vision asks about the ‘Maximoff Anomaly’, but she feigns ignorance. He accuses her of controlling the town, the credits stop, and they rise into the air with their powers. Wanda says she did it for both of them, Vision asks what’s outside of Westview, but she doesn’t answer. Vision says he can’t remember his life before Westview, but Wanda reassures him that he is her husband and a father; he asks why there are no other children in Westview, which she again dismisses. Wanda exaggerates the insanity of what he thinks--gaslighting--and says she doesn’t know how it started in the first place.

The doorbell rings, which she says she didn’t do, and Wanda opens the door to Pietro Maximoff, the brother who she claimed was ‘far away’, but we know to be dead. Except it isn’t Aaron Taylor Johnson’s Pietro, from Avengers: Age of Ultron, and it’s not just a recast. He’s played by Evan Peters, who plays the version of Quicksilver in the X-Men movies, which is clearly intentional.

This led to speculation about the opening of the multiverse, and even though WandaVision doesn’t directly go that route, Wanda’s next appearance is going to be in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

This episode was an excellent one, and we’ve truly begun to build towards the climax.

Episode Six: ‘All-New Halloween Spooktacular!’ Released February 12th, this episode has a still-leaving-a-lot-to-be-desired 37 minute runtime, and is one of the ones primarily featured in the trailers, which showed Wanda and Vision dressed in mock-up costumes of their character design in the comic books, which is especially exciting for Wanda, because, not only has she not yet been officially called ‘Scarlet Witch’, she also hasn’t had an official costume, with most of her other outfits in a darker red, but not the comic Scarlet Witch.

Recap of the relevant information, roll the Marvel logo, and this episode opens with a fast-paced theme song, which shows Wanda for the first time with the red effects of her magic in the Hex through the sitcom camera. This song mentions ‘illusion’ again and again, then moves into a rather elongated verse of repeating ‘let’s keep it going’, implying Wanda is now simply trying to extend the time she has with her family.

The twins introduce the episode in that 1990s break-the-fourth-wall style, they play with Pietro, and Wanda comes downstairs in her costume, claiming to be a Sokovian fortune teller. Pietro says it’s ‘worse than the costumes Mom made us the year we got typhus,’ and we cut to a really brief flashback of Wanda and Pietro trick-or-treating; Wanda has her hair in a braid and Pietro has an eyepatch, which some thought might just be an Easter egg of the two dressing as Black Widow and Nick Fury, but looking at it now, it seems more incidental.

Vision then comes downstairs in his costume, and says he’s only wearing it because Wanda took all his other clothes out of his closet, and that it’s a Mexican wrestler. He tries to leave for the neighbourhood watch, to which Wanda starts, ‘No, that’s not what you’re supposed to--’ as though she’s beginning to lose control over the Hex. Pietro dresses in a mock-Quicksilver costume, and dresses Tommy in something similar, referencing that Tommy, in the comics, also has superspeed. 

Wanda tries to test Pietro on a memory of their childhood, which he calls her out on, and she asks why he looks different, but he says ‘you tell me’, again implying this is her doing. Wanda talks to Herb, one of the neighbours and a member of the watch, who tells her Vision isn’t on duty.

Cut to Vision near the edge of town, and he sees people in their yard repeating the same motions over and over, as if Wanda has less control over the outskirts of town.

Cut to this episode’s commercial: this one is animated, of a boy of a deserted island, and a shark jumps out of the water, and gives him a ‘Yo-Magic’ yoghurt to eat, which the boy takes, but is too weak to open. Time passes, and we watch him starve--’Yo-Magic! The snack for survivors!’ This could be referring to Wanda’s inability to save the people around her with her magic--she couldn’t save HYDRA’s other test subjects, then she couldn’t save Pietro, then Vision.

Wanda asks Pietro what happened to his accent, and he asks her the same question, then tells her his memories are fuzzy. Tommy then goes to get candy, and reveals his superspeed powers. He and Billy then go off with a promise not to ‘go past Ellis Avenue.’

Darcy, Jimmy and Monica hack into Hayward’s data, and discover he figured out a way through the boundary, and that he’s tracking Vision and the people in his vicinity. They notice the people at the edge of town are hardly moving. Cut to Vision, who realises the people even further out are completely stagnant. He then morphs from his human costume to his typical Vision-self, flies upward and observes the town, noticing a car at the edge, which he flies down to.

We see Agnes in the car, dressed as a witch and still, but not unresponsive like the others. She tells him she got lost--’In the town you grew up in?--and he zaps her the way he did Norm in the last episode. She recognises him as Vision, an Avenger, but he doesn’t know what an Avenger is. She tells him he’s dead, and explains Wanda’s control, then laughs manically until Vision zaps her again, and she once again becomes the Nosy Neighbour, then turns the car and drives away. We zoom out to the street sign: Ellis Avenue.

Darcy sees Monica’s bloodwork in Hayward’s files, and tells Monica she can’t go back into the Hex as she wishes, because she’s already been through the boundary twice, and had her cells rewritten molecularly--Ms Marvel!! But Monica dismisses it, and tells Darcy she won’t stop until she helps Wanda.

Pietro accuses Wanda laughingly of only avoiding traumatising the town’s children by only bringing them out for a holiday cameo, but praises her, because ‘Families and couples stay together, most personalities aren’t far off from what’s underneath, people got better jobs, better haircuts, for sure,’ and tells her he’s impressed, but asks how she did it, which she doesn’t answer, then tells him she doesn’t know how she did it. She just remembers loneliness, and numbness.

She then looks back to Pietro, and sees him with bullet wounds in his chest; dead the way she saw Vision in episode 4, but she blinks it away.

Darcy watches Hayward’s tracking of Vision, and he approaches the barrier, sees it in all its television glory. Then he pushes through. He strains to make it through, and SWORD agents pull up on the other side. He nearly makes it, cape all that’s left, but it clearly painful, and he falls to the ground. Chunks of him tear off and fly back through the barrier. Meanwhile, Billy realises something is wrong with an echo of Wanda’s power, hearing Vision’s yells, and runs to Wanda.

Hayward handcuffs Darcy to stop her trying to get him to help Vision as he comes apart. Wanda asks Billy where Vision is, to which Pietro says, ‘Hey, don’t sweat it, sis. It’s not like your dead husband can die twice.’ Her eyes turn red and she sends him flying into a haystack. Billy focuses, and sees the SWORD soldiers, says he thinks Vision’s dying, and Wanda freezes everything around her, then sends out a blast of power.

Outside, the boundary of the Hex moves, expanding, and the SWORD agents panic to get away as Vision is re-encapsulated, but Darcy is handcuffed, and t passes over her. The SWORD camp turns into a circus, but Hayward, Monica and Jimmy get away--slightly wondering why Monica tried to when she was trying to get back in.

And the episode ends there. I don’t really have much of a conclusion to this episode--in truth, not too much actually happened aside from Pietro and the twins, but we are so building to the climax. This is also actually furthered by the absence of a laugh track in this episode, though this is also due to the fact they became less common.

And that summarises my breakdown of episodes 4-6. Part 3, with episodes 7-9, will come next week!

[theloniousbach]

50 Years of Going to Shows, Pt. 9: Jazz in St. Louis

I am in the middle of my fourth year of attending shows at Jazz at the Bistro and it is a great joy to have this formative music back so centrally in my life, to make this my go to music, to think about music in jazz terms.  From that first Johnny Winter blues jam, I’ve always been drawn to virtuosic playing.  Certainly rock and ur-jam band guitarists were a start.  But I saw Norman Blake flat pick amazingly in those early years and later Celtic fiddlers and box players amazed me.  Chamber music but also Irish sessions have an intimate conversational aspect.  But it’s jazz that has it all.  I sensed that in the early 70s and it’s where I’ve come home to now.

I kept my eye on jazz before the Bistro, particularly through Webster University’s wonderful jazz faculty and their performances.  I would return to tried and true recordings, starting with Miles, Monk, and Mingus and Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard.  I knew I couldn’t miss Sonny Rollins when he played UMSL’s performing arts center in 2009 and had even better tickets for a return a few years later that he had to cancel.  He was vital, transforming from a tentative, slightly stooped old man into a flurry of ideas dancing lightly around the stage delighted in the choruses he unfolded for himself and others.  He had a guitarist (not a pianist), a trombone, drums and percussion, and Bob Crenshaw.  Standards and Ellington.  But it was a bit of a one off.

It has taken season packages at Jazz St. Louis for four years now to get the engagement and focus that I now have.It’s fitting that the first one was Bill Charlap and his trio.  That configuration is where I’m glad to start, going back to Oscar Peterson when I was 8.  I’m almost too vociferously anti-musical theater, except jazz musicians have done wonderful things with and burnished the Great American Song Book.  Charlap is one of our key curators.  But these aren’t museum pieces in his hands; they are a dynamic legacy kept alive by use.  There’s taste, drive, invention in tradition.  Just like that Johnny Winter concert in early fall of 1969, there was something I had to have more of.Next up was Vijay Iyer, also in a trio.  A different aesthetic but he worked a jam into Epistrophy, so tradition prevails.  And the piano trio’s elasticity continued to win me over.  The Bad Plus begins the year in St. Louis and we were where the rebooted when Orrin Evans replaced Ethan Iverson.  I saw them once with Iverson, couch toured that opening run of BP2.0, saw them last year and plan to see them next in January.  I started to get them seeing them live, seeing how the compositions work and how they work them.  I think they’re a little warmer and organic with Evans, just as smart and clever but grounded.  I’ve seen Benny Green swing hard and Cyrus Chestnutt do so as well but then throw in a good chunk of French Impressionism.  Emmet Cohen’s band was the foundation for an odd mix of horn players I wanted to see:  Marquis Hill and, for a second time, Melissa Aldana.  The five of them didn’t quite jell, but the Cohen trio is a working band I would see again.  Kenny Barron was a monument of taste and command and Chick Corea was impish, a grand old man of the music in spite of himself.  There were standards but also a glorious exposition on Paco de Luca’s Zyriab, pulling together the Arabic roots of Flamenco.  So, piano trios always with the Bad Plus, Christian Sands at the Sheldon Concert Hall down the street (where I saw Eliane Elias with Marc Johnson do wonderful Brazilian stuff but also some superb jazz evoking Bill Evans), and Connie Han ahead.

Now, we’re Miles Davis’s hometown and folks know that.  The SF Jazz Collective came to the Bistro in 2017 with a program of his music (wide ranging—Tutu and Bitches Brew as well as Nardis for an acoustic ensemble) as well as compositions from band members in the ensemble.  It’s a grand concept—a four horn front line with vibes and rhythm section, with some general stability but it’s morphed over the years.  Everyone composes and arranges and they celebrate a composer each season.  Our band was Sean Jones, David Sanchez, Miguel Zenon, Robin Eubanks, Warren Wolf, Edward Simon, Matt Penniman, and Obed Calvaire.  They return to the Sheldon this year for an In a Silent Way tribute with mostly the same folks—so anther chance to see Sanchez and Zenon who were particularly impressive.  Russell Gunn evoked Miles’s Blackhawk set with Jimmy Cobb holding down the drum chair very capably at age 90.

After piano tours and Milesiana, there are tenors.  So I couch toured a conversation and partial set with Benny Golson—not quite in the room with a legend but a vivid experience.  I am intrigued and enthralled at the playing of Melissa Aldana who crafts vivid lines that fill space quite fully (she has some great trio work) with ideas rather than tone.   Her own quartet had over active drumming from Tommy Crane whereas the Emmet Cohen show pulled her in multiple directions (blusier, mostly) than she quite fit.  She is a star in Artemis, but shares the front line with Anat Cohen and Ingrid Jensen, but she is one star among many.  So I haven’t quite heard the ideal Aldana show.  But I am glad to keep trying.

I’ve been able to see Joshua Redmond twice.  As great as his tenor invention is, his band (with Aaron Goldberg) was what impressed me most.  The way longstanding bands like this (and Branford Marsalis’s with Joey Caldazzaro) think together is very special.  Marsalis and Caldazzaro would magically complete one another’s thoughts and both tenors took great delight in what their bands could do, soloing all the better because of it.  In these bands, but most of them, including the trios, I an struck with just how good drummers have become, really playing music beyond rhythm.  Allison Miller has a Jazz Night in America video on “melodic drumming,” so it was a treat to see her with Artemis, listening so hard but happily to inflect the music so well.  She was almost the one to keep one’s eyes on, except that Anat Cohen exudes such unbridled joy at all times.  Her quartet show was a real highlight of 2018-2019.  I am so glad she and Ben Goldberg are making the clarinet a modern jazz instrument.

Joe Lovano came through with the brilliant and adventurous John Scofield who plays with Phil Lesh and Warren Haynes.  I find myself shying away from jazz guitar preferring the piano.  But that was quite a show as was Scofield again with Jack DeJohnette’s Hudson project which jammed out originals and The Band/Hendrix/Joni Mitchell very well.  DeJohnette has quite a palette of drums and especially cymbals.  We were 4 rows back on his side so we had a literally ringside seat for that magic at the Sheldon.

I have made a point to hear the likes of Marquis Hill, Robert Glasper, Stefon Harris, and, most recently, Terence Blanchard to hear how hip hop is being incorporated into jazz as funk was in my youth and rhythm and blues was in the ‘50s.  My younger generation didn’t bring that music home, so I don’t have that sensibility.  But I would be an old fart in extremis if I didn’t welcome those influences.  That said, I am more intrigued with how SFJAZZ takes the essence of electric Miles into acoustic music than vocoders and loops and reverb.  But, every time these newer shows have lots to delight in, including drummers who move the beat around and are not confined by any strictures.

The music is supposed to grow.  And I get to watch it.

--------------------

This entry is the last one of this 10 part series this Fall celebrating the 50th Anniversary of concert going, marked by my second one from 11/4/69 with Led Zeppelin.  Yes, this is part 9, but, rather like the Beatles releasing Abbey Road before Let It Be (actually, not like those monuments at all), I have already posted a part 10 about the shows I didn’t see.  But, wrapping up with jazz makes a certain amount of sense.

[dpinoycosmonaut]

THE BUBBLE FINALS: AN UNLIKELY MATCHUP

by Reuel Hermoso / 02 October 2020

Two of the best all-around swingmen in the game - Heat star Jimmy Butler and Laker legend LeBron James - square off for all the marbles.  (Photo from slamonline.com)

               The smoke has cleared from both the Eastern and Western Conferences, and expectedly, the Los Angeles Lakers cinched their conference finals and the first NBA finals berth.  But in the Eastern Conference, an unlikely winner emerged – the Miami Heat, who just defeated the fancied Boston Celtics.  

               Eric Spoelstra’s troops are now marching on to the NBA finals, that glorious Nirvana that they have not been to since 2014 when they had current Lakers superstar LeBron James.  They lost that series to the San Antonio Spurs, winning just a game (to the Spurs’ four) in the seven-game series, and James returned to his homestate and its team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the following year, and even conspired with celebrated backcourt wizard Kyrie Irving to give Cleveland its first NBA championship in 2016.  The Heat last won the NBA crown in 2013.  That makes for a really hungry team longing to feast on a championship glory.

               But if a seven-year fast looks bad, the Lakers are in a worse famine, last appearing – and winning – the NBA finals in 2010, when the late great Kobe Bryant was still their unquestioned leader.  Acquiring James’s services after he left the Cavs was a watershed event for the Lakers in their quest to finally end that 10-year title drought.  And signing up the highly-prized former New Orleans Pelicans power forward-center Anthony Davis was the last key to unlock the display chest holding the Larry O’Brien trophy for the Lakers to finally take home.

               Getting other pieces like former Houston Rockets big man Dwight Howard and young gunners Kentavius Caldwell-Pope and Alex Caruso to pace the backcourt, as well as versatile wingmen like the young Kyle Kuzma and the more experienced Markieff Morris to beef up the frontline, helped to complete this powerful Laker roster. Coach Frank Vogel, acquired just last year, has done some pretty admirable work in that short period, piloting the Lakers to a 52-19 win-loss card in just his first season – the best record in the Western Conference and the third-best in the entire league.  This is a team that was put together precisely to restore the Lakers’ lost glory, and with this ticket to the Big Dance, they’re just four wins away from accomplishing that.

               The Heat, however, are looking to spoil the Lakers’ date with destiny, believing that they have their own destiny to meet – and have proven they will not be denied that other finals slot.  The face of the Heat today, Jimmy Butler, is himself a story that mirrors the struggles of his team to get back its own former glory.  Thrown out of the house by his mother at the age of 13, Butler spent the following year hopping from house to house, living with friends who would take him in for a day, a week, or more if he was lucky.  Finally, a friend’s family decided to adopt him.

               They sent him to school, and later saw him off to college to fulfill his dreams of playing varsity basketball.  Initially, he played for Tyler College in his home state of Texas, and was later offered an academic scholarship at Marquette, a perennial March Madness contender in the US NCAA, for which former Heat superstar Dwyane Wade also played.  In his junior year, Butler helped the Golden Eagles to an 11-7 win-loss card that season in the NCAA’s Big East Conference and a fifth consecutive March Madness appearance.

               In the NBA, Butler became a journeyman of sorts, suiting up for the Chicago Bulls, which drafted him in 2011.  Although he played well in his long stint with the Bulls – at one point breaking Michael Jordan’s team record for most points in a half in a game they won against the Toronto Raptors on January 3, 2016 –Butler was plagued by injuries.  In 2017, he was traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves, and the following year he was again traded to the Philadelphia 76ers.  Finally, in a sign-and-trade deal, the guy famously known as “Jimmy Buckets” “moved (his) talent to South Beach,” in the famous words of James himself when he first left the Cavs in 2010 to join the Heat.

               With all this moving and seeming lack of rootedness even from his early adolescence, any lesser man would probably have called it quits.  Certainly not Butler though.  He couldn’t care less how people felt about him, whether they felt pity on him or hated his guts.  As sportswriter Garth Johnson put it in fansided.com: “A lot of guys in the league view basketball as a way to a lifestyle.  Jimmy Butler viewed basketball as a way to a life.  On his own since 13 in a small Texas town outside Houston, Butler had more to worry about than rubbing some people the wrong way.”  Read more about it in https://fansided.com/2020/02/29/jimmy-butler-heat-sledgehammer-greatness/.

               To cut to the chase, this Heat squad today is now Butler’s team – his and his alone.  Sure, he had his chances to carve out a leadership position with the Bulls, but that wasn’t meant to be.  He wasn’t exactly welcomed in Minnesota, and some like Johnson even think Butler broke the Timberwolves apart during his stint there.  But even then, as Johnson observes, “in his one season there they made their first playoff appearance in 14 years.”  The Timberwolves even had their first winning season in 13 years and had a win-loss card of 38-24 with Butler while going 9-11 without him.  They even fell from third in the West when he hurt his knee, to eighth going into the playoffs.

               “You don’t have to be a stat geek to see how they are (now) faring without him,” Johnson argues.

               More importantly, though, it’s what the Heat braintrust decided to do to get those other pieces they needed to put together a team that’s primed to surprise the NBA by achieving what it has in so short a time.  Butler is their crowning recruitment achievement in the offseason, but consider as well coach Spo’s starting five to give you an idea of this team’s ability to continue perplexing the league and its fans.  

               As civil engineer and casual basketball pundit Ramby Nolido observed, they first cornered Kentucky Wildcat sniper Tyler Herro – who now comes off the bench as a deadly sixth man – ahead of their Eastern Conference finals opponents, the Celtics, who were hoping the Heat would overlook him before making Herro the 13th overall draft pick, depriving the Celtics of a chance to get him in the next draft slot at 14th.  Then they acquired former Golden State Warriors small forward Andre Iguodala and two former Celtics – Jae Crowder and Kelly Olynyk – with Crowder playing with an ax to grind against his former team in the just-concluded Eastern Conference finals.  Heat management then brought up deadshot Duncan Robinson from their G-League team to light things up from rainbow country.

               “That’s four steps in the season that they got things right,” says Nolido.  And from their previous roster, they kept Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic, a deadly frontline-backcourt tandem on both ends of the floor.

               The question thus inevitably surfaces: Who will win the NBA title – the first held in a “bubble” in its long history?  Who will get to take the Larry O’Brien trophy out of the bubble?

               Clearly, the advantage is in LA’s favor.  The combined firepower alone of James and Davis in the 2019-20 season is a whopping 51.5 points per game on the average.  The supporting cast is just as potent, with inside-outside threats Kuzma and Caruso combining with Davis, who has decent three-point shooting numbers and can take the ball inside with his vaunted size and athleticism.  Caldwell-Pope is also another recognized perimeter threat, but is a solid slasher as well.  Morris, JaVale McGee, and even Howard are also known to be able to hit it from the perimeter, although that isn’t their strong suit.

               What is their strong suit – and that of the rest of the Lakers – is their astounding inside scoring and, on the defensive end, their protection of the shaded lane.  Indeed, LA has dominated the paint throughout much of the season, and obviously the Lakers will continue to use their size and length to their fullest advantage.  Because despite the timely three-point bombs that guys like Kuzma, Caruso, Caldwell-Pope, and even the superstars James and Davis have unleashed with deadly accuracy during the playoffs, the Lakers are not exactly an outside scoring juggernaut, averaging just 34.9 percent from trifecta range (averaging home and road three-point shooting percentages prior to the lockdown, according to https://www.nba.com/lakers/stats/team).  In the bubble, that percentage has dropped even lower to 30.6 percent in July and 30.2 percent in August.  

 Source: https://www.nba.com/article/2020/09/28/2020-playoffs-numbers-preview-lakers-heat-finals

                In contrast, the Lakers own the low post.  They are monsters in the restricted area, scoring a gargantuan 88 points underneath the basket compared to the Heat’s 74.  Here’s the thing though – elsewhere in the paint, Miami outscores LA but not by much.  Total points in the shaded area will expectedly go the way of the Lakers.  This accounts for many of their wins, since inside points are higher-percentage shots compared to perimeter attempts.

               Still, the numbers for outside points seem to be going the way of the Lakers.  Total mid-rangers and three-balls have them up 26 points over the Heat.  But where the boys from South Beach have the upper hand scoring-wise is from the free-throw line.  There, they outscore the Hollywood boys by a whopping 18 markers.  They also run the break better, beating LA in transition by nine points – both crucial advantages in the clutch.  Where the Lakers are better off with the game on the line is in second-chance points, where they lord it over the Heat by 20 points.

               Indeed, offense and offensive efficiency will spell the difference for both teams, despite their respective claims to being defensive juggernauts.  As John Schuhmann of nba.com wrote: “Both teams have had success on both ends of the floor, but offense was the story in the conference finals. The Lakers and Denver Nuggets combined to score 115.3 points per 100 possessions, while the Heat and Boston Celtics combined to score 114.1.  Those were the third- and fourth-most efficient series of the 14 we've seen thus far.”

               We should thus expect that offense will remain the most compelling reason for their respective coaching staffs to continue as that is what has brought them both this far.

               Or is it?  Perhaps both teams will be wise to revisit their defensive narrative and give it more of the importance it truly deserves.  As University of Alabama legendary football coach Bear Bryant (no relation to Kobe) famously said (and which Ateneo sniper Jai Reyes repeated after his Blue Eagles successfully wrested the UAAP men’s basketball title from the La Salle Green Archers in 2008): “Offense wins games, but defense wins championships!”

               The team with the better defensive strategy will take the series – and the championship.  As Schuhmann of nba.com correctly observes: “To win their 17th championship, the Lakers will have to keep up with the Heat's ball and player movement.  To win their fourth, the Heat will have to protect the rim.  In both cases, it's much easier said than done.”  (As an aside, as a Celtics fan, I just want to say that this is one reason why I’m rooting for the Heat; it’s not just because of our natural aversion to the Purple-and-Gold but also because Boston diehards want to keep that record of most number of NBA titles ever.  Touché!)

               Each game, each quarter, maybe even each possession, will boil down to how the individual and roster matchups will fare between these two protagonists.  Key here will be the substitution patterns of Messrs. Vogel and Spoelstra, and how they can effectively use the chess pieces they each have.  

               Coach Vogel has largely stuck with his starting five of James as point forward, Davis at the forward spot, Caldwell-Pope as swingman, JaVale McGee at center, and Danny Green as shooting guard, while coach Spo has from time to time experimented in his backcourt lineup, but with schoolboy charm Duncan Robinson and Dragic in the perimeter, Adebayo at center, and Butler and Dragic in the wings as the mainstays.  He has a potent bench, with boy wonder Herro as his sixth man and Crowder at the forward spots (the latter’s versatility allows him to play both the small and power positions), with both players having reliable deep-three shots that can spread the Laker defense to its limits.  It is a fast lineup, well, at least faster than that of the Lakers, and should leverage on that speed to run the floor before the Lakers’ transition defense can react.

               What’s also interesting and has been fun to watch thus far is the Butler-Adebayo tandem.  Schuhmann at nba.com notes that, when the two are on the floor together, the Heat outscore their opponents by 10.6 points more per 100 possessions.  But they’ve been outscored by their opponents by 3.0 points per 100 possessions in 103 minutes with just Adebayo without Butler on the floor, and by 14.4 points per 100 possessions in 99 minutes of play with just Butler without Adebayo.  It would seem that, if coach Spo had to keep either one on the bench longer, it would have to be Butler.  

               Indeed, as Schuhmann demonstrates, “the Heat have scored 16.9 more points per 100 possessions with Bam Adebayo on the floor (116.1) than they have with him off the floor (99.2).  That's the fourth-biggest on-off offense rating differential among 73 players who've played at least 200 total minutes in the postseason.”

               Adebayo clearly has proven himself to have a greater impact on the game for the Heat, and the last game against Boston in the Eastern Conference finals showed the value he brings to the table.  Though a center, Adebayo moves like a power forward with the way he screens and passes (especially his interior passing), and even his turnaround jumper in the key is cash.  And that's how he could wreak havoc on the Lakers' post defenders like Howard and McGee – maybe even Davis as a rim defender.  

               On the offensive end, those guys may also have fits trying to score against him in the post, Adebayo being the most athletic big on the Heat roster, with more than ample length and heft.  Of course, we can’t forget Iguodala, who brings with him championship experience from Golden State, having been with the Warriors in all their three NBA championships thus far in the 21st century (2015, 2017 and 2018).  It will be remembered that in the 2015 title series, Iguodala fashioned a defensive masterpiece on James, limiting the latter to 38.1 percent field-goal shooting compared to 44 percent when Iguodala was on the bench.  Both Iguodala and James are in their mid-30s, and have had their fair share of NBA glory.  For sure, James will look at settling an old score, while Iguodala will look at putting the cuffs on The King once again via his tried-and-tested lockdown D that made James bleed for every point, giving the Warriors a superior 3-1 finals win-loss card in all their NBA finals showdowns that only saw a failure in 2016.

               So who will be the Bubble Champions of the NBA?  The numbers coming out of the Las Vegas bookies give the clear advantage to the Lakers, if only for the James-Davis pairing.  But as many hoops pundits have seen through decades of watching this game, stranger things have happened in basketball.  Just last August, the Milwaukee Bucks were the indubitable favorite to win the NBA crown among the bookies and oddsmakers.  Everyone and his mother now know Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, Eric Bledsoe, the Lopez twins and company are now vacationing wherever.

               Actually, folks were looking at a Bucks-Lakers finals.  And I thought we’d be having a revival of the famous Celtics-Lakers rivalry of the ages.

               The bottomline: sit back, relax.  Or stand up, and bite your nails.  Either way, this will be a great series.  James up against his old team.  Or Heat president Pat Riley up against the old team that he coached.  No plot could have been better contrived.

[placetobenation]

SmackDown on Fox Episode #19 SmackDown Episode # 1,068 San Jose, CA – SAP Center 2/7/20 We open with a video hyping Goldberg’s return tonight on SmackDown and then we go to the intro video and the pyro opening. The Miz & John Morrison make their way to the ring to host the first episode of The Dirty Sheet in over ten years. Miz & Morrison introduced us to a short film they put together titled “Once Upon A Time on the Dirt Sheet” which was a spoof of the “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” movie, the film featured cameos from Lance Storm, Johnny “Ace” Laurinaitis, & future Oscar nominee George “Mr. Miz” Mizanin. The movie was used to hype up their match with The New Day at Super Showdown. New Day come out and the two teams take shots at each other before Miz & Morrison state that they have beaten every team on SmackDown in order to become the #1 contenders. This brings out The Usos who remind Miz & Morrison that they have never beaten them and then they welcome Miz & Morrison to the Uso penitentiary. Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode come out and we get a brawl with all four teams as we go to commercial. 

I thought the film part of this was really fun as it was something a bit different than we’re used to seeing. I thought the whole promo part after that was pretty meh, except for the fact that we had a bit of a bait and switch as it seemed like we were either going to get Usos vs Miz & Morrison or an 8 man tag, but no we have to get a pairing that we have seen face each other in some shape, form, or fashion over twenty times in the last couple of months.  Match #1: The Usos vs Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode The match starts as soon as we come back from commercial. Ziggler and Jimmy start the match and jockey for control while still in the lock-up, Ziggler backs Jimmy into his corner and tags in Roode. Roode works Jimmy over in the corner before whipping him into the opposite corner, but Jimmy leaps up and over Roode and then delivers a stinging chops of his own. Jimmy hits Roode with a big right hand as he comes off the rope and then delivers one to Ziggler who comes into the ring. Jimmy tags in Jey who jumps off the top with an ax handle to the arm of Roode. Roode reverses a whip into the ropes by Jey who gets tripped up by Ziggler and as he turns back around is clotheslined by Roode. Roode tags in Ziggler and Ziggler dropkicks Jey for a 2 count. Ziggler and Roode continue to work Jey over on their side of the ring while they make frequent tags. 

Roode grounds Jey for a couple of minutes before hitting him with a gourdbuster and Ziggler follows that up with a fameasser for a 2 count. Ziggler knocks Jimmy off the apron and as he turns his attention away from Jey he gets rolled up in a schoolboy but is able to kick out. Ziggler and Roode hit their Spinebuster and Zig-Zag combo move for a very close 2 count as Jimmy breaks it up at the last second. Jimmy hits a superkick on Ziggler only to turn around into a big boot from Roode. Jey hits Roode with an enziguri and then goes up top only to get shoved off the top to the floor by Ziggler as we go to commercial.  As we come back Roode is raking the face of Jey across the top rope and then works him over in the corner. Jey tries to make a comeback when Ziggler gets tagged in but a single kick to the knee sends him back down to the mat. Jey fights his way out of the heel corner and then dumps Roode to the outside and just as he is about to finally make the tag to Jimmy he is cut off by Roode, Roode tries to knock Jimmy off the apron but he ducks and then Jey crawls between Roode’s legs and finally makes the tag.  Jimmy enters the ring via a diving crossbody of the top and then fires away with right hands and uppercuts followed by a Samoan drop on Roode and then one on Ziggler. Jimmy hits the running hip smash on Ziggler and goes for one on Roode, but gets caught with a powerslam instead. Jimmy counters an attempted Glorious DDT with a backdrop and this leads to Roode tagging Ziggler back in. Ziggler hits the Zig Zag on Jimmy for a close 2 count. Ziggler sets up for the superkick, but Jimmy connects with his own first and then hits one on Roode as well. Jey is tagged back in and he goes for the Uso Splash, but Ziggler gets his knees up and rolls Jey into a pin but Jey is able to kick out.  Ziggler tags Roode in and they attempt a double suplex on Jey but Jimmy makes the save, Ziggler and Jimmy both go over the top to the floor. Jey goes for a superkick on Roode but his leg gets caught and Roode tries for an O’Connor roll but at the last second Jimmy blind tags himself into the match. The Usos hit a double superkick on Roode and then Jimmy goes up top and hits the Uso Splash to pick up the win. Winners: The Usos via Pinfall  Match Rating: **½ This was a good match as usual between these two teams but nothing about it made it stand out from the rest of their matches against each other.  We cut to the back where we see Alexa Bliss getting ready for her match when Nikki Cross walks up and hands Alexa her gloves. Alexa talks about how she has beaten Bayley before and she can do it again, but Nikki reminds her that she has to get through her match tonight first and Bliss lets her know she has a plan up her sleeve.  We got a recap of the main event segment last week with King Corbin getting covered in dog food. We see Corbin entering the production truck and he wants to know who just played that video, he finds the guy and throws him out of the production truck and down the stairs that lead up to the truck. Agents run over and back Corbin away.  I really enjoyed this segment with Corbin as it made sense that a heel would be so embarrassed and pissed off about what happened to him that he would want to take his frustrations out on the people that re-aired the video for the entire world to see. With that being said I personally didn’t need to relive that horrible Wrestlecrap segment yet again.  Elias is in the ring and he plays the guitar for a while until Cesaro and Sami Zayn cut him off. Zayn gets on the mic and starts trash talking Elias saying that what happens to him tonight at the hands of Cesaro is his own fault. Cesaro and Zayn walk down to the ring as we go to commercial.  Match #2: Elias vs Cesaro w/ Sami Zayn We come back from commercial with the match already in progress as Cesaro has Elias back up into the corner. Elias shoots Cesaro into the ropes from being in a headlock and as he comes back Elias tries for a hip toss but it’s blocked and then Cesaro lands a big European uppercut. Elias reverses a whip into the ropes and hits a big back body drop on Cesaro. Elias hits a one-armed backbreaker on Cesaro that gets a 2 count. Cesaro then reverses a whip into the corner but this ends up being a bad decision as Elias hits him with a mule kick out of the corner. Elias looks to go up top but before he can Zayn gets up on the apron, this leads to Cesaro sending Elias into the ring post face-first and then he hits Elias with a big boot knocking him off the apron.  Cesaro goes out to get Elias but first, he slams him sternum first onto the barricade. Cesaro rolls Elias into the ring and covers Elias for a 2 count. Cesaro locks Elias in a chin lock for a couple of minutes until Elias starts to fight his way out of it. Cesaro then hits Elias with a back body drop and an elbow drop for another 2 count. Cesaro hits a gutwrench suplex that Elias kicks out of. Cesaro chokes Elias across the middle rope and then distracts the referee long enough for Zayn to get in a cheap shot. Cesaro grounds Elias once again with another chin lock. Elias fights his way out once again and then Cesaro lowers his head looking for another backdrop but Elias kicks him instead. Cesaro tries to go for a rest hold for a third time but Elias hits him with a belly to back suplex. Cesaro looks to hit a running European uppercut in the corner, but Elias gets his boot up and then hits a nice jumping knee strike that keeps Cesaro down long enough for a 2 count. 

Elias goes up top but Cesaro crotches him, Cesaro joins Elias on the ropes and wants to hit a superplex but Elias keeps blocking it and finally pushes Cesaro off the ropes sending him down to the mat. Elias is slow to get into position for what he wants to come off the top with so Cesaro springs to his feet and hits Elias with a jumping European uppercut that sends Elias down to the apron. Cesaro then hits a deadlift superplex but this still isn’t enough to finish off Elias. Cesaro looked to be going for the Neutralizer, but Elias counters it into a jackknife pin for another 2 count. Elias runs off the ropes and Cesaro catches him with a pop-up uppercut but that still isn’t enough to finish off Elias.  Cesaro picks up Elias and hits him with a barrage of short-range European uppercuts. Elias fires back with some chops and now we have both men exchanging strikes. Elias backs Cesaro into the corner and hits him with repeated strikes to the point where the referee has to pull him off Cesaro. Elias then hits a clothesline and a body slam on Cesaro and finally, he hits the top rope elbow drop and that is enough to put the Swiss Cyborg down for the 3 count. Winner: Elias via Pinfall   Match Rating: ***¼ I definitely wasn’t expecting this match to be as good as it was, but these two went out and put on a really good match, putting on a really good match is nothing new for Cesaro, however, it definitely isn’t something I come to expect from Elias as most of the time I find him average at best in the ring. This may be Elias’s best singles match of his WWE career but then again it’s hard to have a bad match when you’re standing across the ring from one of the most underrated wrestlers that WWE has on its roster.  We see Goldberg getting mic’d up for an interview as we go to break.  When we come back we are getting ready for the Goldberg interview, but before that Corbin comes out and cuts the heel promo you would expect from him. Corbin says he wants Roman Reigns in the ring one more time because Reigns would’ve never beat him without The Usos. Corbin pours a drink on a fan and that is when Reigns comes out and beats the shit out of Corbin until Corbin retreats through the crowd. Reigns gets on the mic and says if Corbin wants another match with him that’s fine but it’s going to be inside of a steel cage.  I can’t even begin to express how sick and tired I am of this feud, this feud has been going on for 4 damn months, that’s right a feud between Roman Reigns and Baron Corbin has been going on for 4 DAMN MONTHS and while there are some feuds in the history of WWE that have lasted 4 months and still feel fresh and still have something to offer, this is far from being one of those feuds. There have been three times in the last four months where this feud should’ve ended, but Vince McMahon for some reason thinks the fans are so invested in this feud that it needs to keep going into eternity but in reality this feud is only playing to an audience of one and that one is Vince McMahon himself. The fact that they are putting the match in a steel cage doesn’t bring any added interest to it at all, in fact, they could get naked and light themselves on fire and I still couldn’t give two shits about these two facing each other.  We then go to the interview with Goldberg via satellite where he talks about how he never got a chance to regain the Universal Championship so he is challenging The Fiend. We are then interrupted by breaking news courtesy of Firefly Funhouse News (FFN) and we go to lead anchor Bray Wyatt. Bray sets that The Fiend accepts and then throws to Mercy the Buzzard for the weather who says that Goldberg has no chance in hell of taking the title off The Fiend. Goldberg cuts in and says that Bray’s intimidation isn’t going to work and that he is going to take the Universal Championship from The Fiend and that The Fiend is NEXT! When it was announced earlier this week that Goldberg was going to be on SmackDown I was under the impression that he was actually going to be there but instead, we got him via satellite from his garage. I am very interested to see how this Fiend vs Goldberg match plays out as this could just be a simple one-off for Goldberg where he just comes in and gets some more Saudi blood money while at the same time giving The Fiend a win over another legend, but on the other hand, Goldberg could be working a match at WrestleMania and could go in as the Universal Champion just like in 2017. If Goldberg does go into WrestleMania as champion then his most likely opponent would be Roman Reigns, but if that happens then who does that leave The Fiend face at WrestleMania?

Daniel Bryan is in the locker room minding his own business when Heath Slater walks up and he says that he is worried about Bryan. Slater starts talking about everything Bryan went through with The Fiend and he keeps rambling on and on about it to the point where Bryan finally got tired of hearing it and challenged Slater to a match before leaving the locker room.  Match #3: Daniel Bryan vs Heath Slater As soon as the bell rings Bryan connects with a running corner dropkick on Slater and then throws him out of the ring so he can hit him with a tope suicida which sends Slater falling over the announce table. Bryan throws Slater back into the ring and then comes off the top with a missile dropkick. Bryan hits the Yes Kicks and follows that up with the running knee, but he isn’t done with Slater yet. Bryan clutches the wrists of Slater and repeatedly stomps on the head of Slater before finally locking in the Yes Lock to pick up the win. Winner: Daniel Bryan via Submission   Match Rating: *¾ I really locked the locker room exchange between Slater and Bryan because just like the Corbin thing earlier in the night with the production truck it felt like something new and fresh. I liked how the subject matter in the promo that Slater cut was very serious, but yet the way he delivered it was hilarious. You don’t realize how much you miss Heath Slater on TV until he shows back up and knocks whatever he is doing out of the park which he does every time he is given the opportunity to. I’m still not sure where this Daniel Bryan thing is going but unlike a lot of stuff on SmackDown lately I am definitely interested to see where it goes. 

As we come back from commercial we are shown footage of last week when Braun Strowman won the Intercontinental Championship.  Braun Strowman is interviewed by Renee Young about his title win last week, he says winning the title is the greatest accomplishment of his career. Strowman is interrupted by Sami Zayn & Shinsuke Nakamura who wants a rematch as Strowman’s win was fraudulent. Strowman says Nakamura can have a rematch anytime he wants including tonight. Nakamura and Zayn walk toward the ring but then decide against it and instead Strowman is attacked from behind by The Revival. Strowman comes back and takes out everyone and then runs after Zayn but Zayn runs into the ring and when Strowman follows he is hit by Nakamura with a Kinshasa.  This was fine as it continues on the feud between Strowman and Nakamura and also got The Revival on the show. I guess The Revival will join Zayn’s stable as his lackeys while they wait on their contracts to run out so they can leave the company.  We then get a video package showing Otis getting ready for his date with Mandy Rose next week via a Rocky esque training montage that shows him trying on different outfits as well as trying to learn etiquette. This was an easy yet effective way to feature this story on the show and remind us of the big date next week between the two love birds.   Match #4: Sheamus vs Apollo Crews Sheamus hits clubbing blows to the back of Crews and then goes for a clothesline but Crews ducks and lands some strikes of his own. Sheamus reverses an Irish whip but lowers his head too early and gets kicked and then hit with an enziguri. Sheamus avoids a splash in the corner and then hits Crews with the Brogue Kick to pick up the win. Winner: Sheamus via Pinfall   Match Rating: ½* After the match, Shorty G runs out and tries to make the save but ends up getting hit with the Brogue Kick as well.  Yep, this happened, nice to see Apollo Crews get his bi-annual Raw or SmackDown squash appearance.  The announcers hype up the Super Showdown matches before we go to the main event.  Match #5: Alexa Bliss vs Naomi vs Carmella vs Dana Brooke We only get to see Naomi’s entrance as the other three women are already in the ring, Bayley is at ringside and will be watching the match to see who her next opponent will be. I think we should’ve at least got Alexa’s entrance as she has had a big week as she first got to interview the stars of the Birds of Prey movie, then a song was released by the band Bowling for Soup that is all about her, and finally, TMZ ran a story about Alexa and the new man in her life Ryan Cabrerra so it has been an eventful week for the “Five Feet of Fury”. We start out with Carmella and Alexa fighting it out in one corner and Naomi taking on Dana in another corner. Dana backdrops Naomi to the apron but Naomi connects with a sunset flip pin on Dana which Dana kicks out of and then tries to score a pin of her own, but Naomi kicks out. Carmella tries for a schoolgirl pin on Dana and right after Alexa tries for an Oklahoma roll on Carmella but neither pinfall attempts are successful. Dana kicks Naomi in the gut and then tries to clothesline Carmella, but Mella ducks and then moonwalks until she backs into Alexa who hits her with a big right hand. Dana hits a dropkick on Naomi and then hits the handspring back elbow on Carmella after Alexa moves out of the way. Alexa hits a forearm shot to Dana and then dropkicks her sending her out of the ring under the bottom rope. Naomi dropkicks Alexa and she rolls to the outside and then Naomi hits a tornillo to the outside onto all three of her opponents. Bayley takes this time to raise her title and talk some smack, Naomi gets to her feet and shoves Bayley and this leads to Bayley sending Naomi into the steel steps as we go to commercial.  

As we come back from break we see Dana miss a Swanton Bomb and Alexa takes advantage of that by hitting her with a terrible looking DDT and then Carmella hits Alexa with a flat liner. All three women in the ring are laid out and Naomi is still out on the outside after the attack from Bayley. Alexa and Dana get to their feet only to get taken right back down when Naomi hits them with a springboard crossbody. Naomi hits a running jawbreaker on Carmella, a full nelson bomb on Alexa, and finally, she takes Dana down with a springboard chuck kick but only gets a 2 count on a pinfall attempt as Alexa breaks it up. Alexa sends Naomi to the outside and when she does Carmella tries to score a surprise win with a schoolgirl on Alexa but she kicks out at 2. Carmella tries for a superkick but Alexa ducks and hits her slap and right-hand combo and then follows up with Insult to Injury. Dana hits Alexa with the Brooketista Bomb for another 2 count as Carmella breaks up the pin.  Carmella stomps on Dana in the corner and follows up with another moonwalk before hitting Dana with the bronco buster. Naomi then hits Carmella with a bulldog that sends her face-first into the middle turnbuckle and then follows up with the split-legged moonsault which only gets 2 as Dana breaks it up at the very last second. Dana picks Naomi up in the fireman’s carry position, but Naomi slips out the back and then hits Dana with a wheelbarrow stunner. Alexa is back in and she takes Naomi down with a dropkick and then stomps a mudhole into her in the corner. Naomi rolls Alexa up in a small package that gets a 2 count. Naomi hits a big standing leg drop as Bayley looks on from ringside with a concerned look on her face. Naomi sets Alexa up top and they trade strikes which Alexa eventually gets the best of as she pushes Naomi down to the mat and Alexa sees this as an opportunity to try for a pin but she only gets a 2 count.  Alexa hits some clubbing blows and then looks to hit a seated Naomi with a running dropkick, but she stops on a dime and slaps Naomi and gets a one count on a pinfall attempt. Dana and Carmella get back on the apron so Naomi throws Alexa into Carmella and then suplexes Dana into the ring. Naomi hits a split style leg drop onto Dana for a 2 count. Naomi throws Dana to the outside and then gets sent into the second turnbuckle face-first by Alexa. Naomi tries to bulldog Alexa into the turnbuckles like she did Carmella earlier, but Alexa pushes her off and this time Naomi is the one sent into the turnbuckles. Alexa goes to hit Twisted Bliss on Naomi but she gets her knees up and then she takes Alexa out with the Rear View. Carmella runs in and hits two superkicks on Naomi and pins her to pick up the win, however, it looked like Naomi’s shoulders may have come up during the count. Winner: Carmella via Pinfall   Match Rating: **3/4  After the match, Bayley attacks Carmella from behind and actually hits her with The Stroke this time and it looked much better than whatever she had been using as a finisher. SmackDown goes off the air with Bayley walking up the ramp holding her title in the air as Carmella looks on from the ring in shock.  It’s about time the women of SmackDown were featured in a match that lasts more than five minutes as it has been awhile. This match did a great job of putting over Naomi as she was definitely the star of the match despite not winning the match. Naomi not winning came as a total shock as I thought she was a guaranteed winner after the interaction she had with Bayley both last week and earlier in this match, but seeing as it looked like her shoulders were up they will most likely either make it a triple threat match or have the Carmella title defense be on TV (or perhaps they even have the match at Super Showdown although that is the less likely choice) while the title match against Naomi will happen at Elimination Chamber. It will be interesting to see how they get back to Sasha vs Bayley in time for WrestleMania because right now with all the mainstream attention Naomi is getting it feels like she should be the one to dethrone Bayley, but I know the bigger draw for Mania is Bayley vs Sasha. 

I thought this was a better episode than last week, but then again any show that didn’t have a match that revolved around someone being covered with dog food would’ve been better than last week. I am interested to see how both the Daniel Bryan and the Goldberg vs Fiend stories turn out. I am also liking the New Day vs Miz & Morrison feud and look forward to seeing more interactions between those two teams. On the flip side, I am sick and tired of seeing anything that involves any combination of Roman Reigns, The Usos, Dolph Ziggler & Bobby Roode, & King Corbin against each other and to a lesser extent, the same can be said about the Sheamus vs Shorty G feud. We got some new interesting stuff on this show, but yet at the same time we still got far too much of the same old shit that we have seen for the past three months.  That’s it for this week ladies and gentlemen but I will be back next week as we continue down the road to WrestleMania that has a long-ass detour that takes us through Saudi Arabia. 

[londontheatre]

Outlaws to In-Laws

70 years is, according the bible, the amount of time that a person has on earth – Psalm 90, verse 10: “The days of our years are three score and ten.” Of course, in reality, people often live much longer. But, over the course of seven decades its amazing how much the world in which we live can change and this is the central message of Outlaws to In-Laws which is part of the centrepiece of the King’s Head Theatre’s Queer Festival 17.

Outlaws to In-Laws is not a single play but is an evening comprising of seven plays by individual authors, each taking place in a separate decade between the 1950s and 2010s. The first, Happy and Glorious by Philip Meeks take place on the day of the Queen’s coronation in 1953. In a ‘gentleman’s club’ overlooking Westminster Abbey, Edward (Alex Marlow) and Peter (Elliot Balchin) are welcoming a new member in the shape of Dennis (Myles Devonté) a young black man who is a complete innocent in the underground world of gay men in 1950s Britain. Despite the law, both Peter and Edward seem happy as they are. Even drag queen Arthur (Paul Carroll) seems content despite his recent brush with the law. As the Queen is crowned, the men have no doubt that for homosexuals, the new Elizabethan era will not change life one jot for them.

Move forward to Liverpool in 1965 and Jonathan Harvey’s Mister Tuesday. Two men, Jimmy (Elliot Balchin) and Peter (Jack Bence) are sitting in bed relaxing. It is obviously a post coital moment and both gentlemen should be feeling relaxed and chilled after their time together. But they aren’t, and the reasons for this become obvious very quickly. Both men have secrets to keep from each other and the world outside and both know more than they should about the other. What is the future of the two young men who, if only they had met a couple of years later may have found their lives to be completely different?

1977, the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and we enter the world of Reward by Jonathan Kemp. On a London street, two men are waiting for a bus. Donald (Michael Duke) is a young, well dressed black man, waiting patiently book in hand, is joined by Spike (Jack Bence) a young skinhead who, in order to make himself comfortable, has dragged a discarded sofa over to the bus stop. The two boys tentatively start to chat in a way that would definitely not be approved of by Spike’s skinhead mates, and especially his friend Terry (Paul Carroll)

Move forward and the Conservative Party conference provides the backdrop to Patrick Wilde’s 1984. At the Grand Hotel, waiter Tommy (Alex Marlow) is having a break, drinking some purloined gin, when he is joined by his old friend – and current Tory speech writer – Alan (Elliot Balchin). The two of them are no longer close and politically, they could not be further away from each other. One is living with the AIDS crises whilst the other does not even acknowledge it. Maybe the intercession of would-be thief Peter (Jack Bence) will change things for both men.

Following the interval, we enter the year 1997. There is a new government and in Princess Die by Matt Harris, The Queen of Hearts is emulated by a young drag queen called Shane (Alex Marlow). However, Shane has made a huge mistake on a night out with his boyfriend Tyler (Myles Devonté). Returning home alone, Shane seeks solace in drugs and suddenly finds his fantasies coming to life in the immaculate shape of underwear model Calvin (Elliot Balchin). Can Calvin make Shane realise what he has done and help him to save his romance or is Calvin but a figment of Shane’s drug addled mind?

Two young black gay men, alcohol and a computer are the ingredients for Brothas 2.0 by Topher Campbell. Its 2004 and the internet has brought a new way of connecting with other men. As Dwayne (Michael Duke) and Femi (Myles Devonté) sit drinking, they browse the various profiles of other men looking for a hook-up. Both boys are very ‘street’ in their actions and words but both are also not exactly what they seem. Dwayne is very fussy about who he speaks too online and despite Femi’s protestations, Dwayne seems to find something wrong with everyone who tries to contact him. Until a certain profile appears which changes his mind.

Finally, it is 2017 and in Joshua Val Martin’s The Last Gay Play the dream of a church wedding has finally come true for Robin (Jack Bence) and his partner Zak (Michael Duke). Not only are they getting married in a church but the celebrant for the ceremony will be Robin’s father Ted (Paul Carroll). As pre-wedding nerves kick in, Robin and his Dad have some serious things to say to each other. Does the answer to all the questions lie in a ring, first seen back in 1953?

Wow, seven plays in two hours – with a fifteen-minute interval – is a lot to take in at one showing. With each play lasting, average, fifteen minutes, the writers and actors had to do a fantastic job of getting their characters established and stories told. And, on the whole, this they did with style.

With seven shows, each member of the audience is going to have their particular favourite and the one that doesn’t quite work for them. Having written about each of them today, I’m actually surprised to find that my favourite was Reward. Without giving anything away, the subject matter, and very authentic 1970s language should have been a total turn off but, the writing was pretty amazing completely took me surprise as the story unfolded. At no point did it go the way I thought it would, given the characters involved. I also thought this was the strongest acting-wise with Michael, Paul and particularly Jack Bence completely believable in their respective roles.

On the flip side, the play I had most trouble connecting with was Brothas 2.0 which, despite some fine acting from Michael and Myles really didn’t work for me. Maybe it was because it was a shade too real but having been on the receiving end of some of the comments made by the boys, I found the play irritating. Personally, I think it would be nice if just once a playwright let the fat gay man actually win and not just be a cheap joke element guaranteed to raise some laughter. Of course, this is a personal opinion and did not detract from the evening as a whole.

Anyhow, full credit to the cast of Outlaws to In-Laws for their performances throughout. Normally, when you see a night of short plays, each one has its own individual cast but here, we had six actors playing a total of twenty very varied roles. A really impressive feat that they do very well. One final thing about acting. There is a real art in not moving and not all actors can do it well, but hats off to Elliot Balchin for his ability to sit centre of the stage in just a pair of CKs without any movement to the point where you almost forget he was there. I also really liked the idea of the ‘Ring’ moving through the years which was a lovely way of connecting the individual plays. Having one Director in Mary Franklin and a single, flexible set by P J Mcevoy also helped make the evening feel connected and Robin Lill’s costumes were wonderfully era specific.

To sum up then. Outlaws to In-Laws is a most appropriately titled show that takes a slice through seven decades of gay men’s life with a very honest forthright approach that shows not only how far we have come but, to an extent, what there is still to do.

Review by Terry Eastham

Outlaws to In-laws, which gets its world premiere at London’s King’s Head Theatre from 29 August – 23 September, is dedicated to the struggles and joys of gay men connecting with each other over the last seven decades.

From the darkest days of criminality to the legalising of gay marriage, it features seven short plays by leading gay writers that represent each of the decades from the 1950s to the present day.

Outlaws to In-Laws King’s Head Theatre 29th August to 23rd September 2017 http://ift.tt/1fCF0rr

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